A global comparison of the circumscription and compromise theory of career development in science career aspirations

Globally, science interest in diminishing among students, and as a result the science career field has begun to suffer from a lack of science career aspirations. The issue is especially relevant in developed countries, such as the United States, Japan, and South Korea, because of their policies and efforts to promote science and science education with students in their country. This study uses the circumscription and compromise (C&C) theory of career development to ascertain what factors are contributing to the lack of science career aspirations. Data were sourced from a cross-national, K-12, expanded Draw-a-Scientist Test that was collected as part of a larger study on students’ science perceptions. A binary logistic regression was used to determine what factors, if any, were significant predictors of science circumscription in each of the four C&C stages. The factors tested were age grouping (6–8, 9–13, and 14–19), location (the United States, South Korea, Jamaica, Japan, and El Salvador), and gender. Results found that age was a significant predictor in all four stages, whereas gender was only significant in two. Significant variation between countries only occurred in stage 1 and stage 3.